Sickening news today of the case of a homeless man who was "happy slapped" to death for "a right laugh" in Stratford last September. The three men charged with Gary Turner's murder, all in their early twenties, apparently went on a violent spree that night attacking three people in total.
The gang recorded their first attack on the passive, sleeping and intoxicated Mr Turner on a mobile phone and then returned several hours later to beat him to death. It seems that, the second time around, they were so busy having fun assaulting the defenceless man that they forgot to set the camera going. Shame.
Back in 2005, randomly happy slapping commuters a la "you’ve been Tango-ed" and catching it on camera to share with mates seemed anti-social, pointless and cruel but, compared to the vicious beatings for kicks that are being perpetrated by young people with video recording capability on their sodding mobile phones these days, is positively tame.
Londonist despairs that our (admittedly) hyper-impersonal, busy, busy, but wonderfully diverse and endlessly intriguing city can leave young people feeling so utterly bored and alienated from others that randomly attacking fellow Londoners seems like a fun way to spend an evening and populate YouTube.
The trial was adjourned till Thursday.
Wistful image courtesy of cycleologist's Flickrstream.
